The Government’s Behavioral Economics Roots

There’s an interesting article in today’s Wall Street Journal underlining the interest of the Obama administration in harnessing the power of behavioral economics for positive behavior change.

One key reason for the heavy dose of behavioral economics: Senior administration officials — from Mr. Barr at Treasury to White House economist Austan Goolsbee to Peter Orszag, Cass Sunstein and others in the Office of Management and Budget — all spent years studying how to tweak regulations to force consumers to consider their decisions more carefully.